We Sing Pop!: review

The latest entry in the Wii exclusive We Sing karaoke series firmly, and unashamedly, plants both feet in the world of pop music; hence the title We Sing Pop!. Another karaoke game, another review; how best to handle it? Why, with a Critical Gamer karaoke party of course! What follows is (what we’re telling you is) a truthful account of said party. Really. Ahem.

With the office Wii connected to the biggest TV and the baddest speakers that we could find, it was time to allow the aural atrocities to begin. Luke, unfortunately, demanded that he be allowed to sing first as he’s editor and co-owner and everything. Despite the fact that the We Sing games are more forgiving than most when it comes to judging the player’s voice – even on Hard – he managed to score a record zero points when murdering When You Were Young by The Killers. In fact his singing was so bad, the CG tea boy needed surgery; and he wasn’t even in the same room.

Twelve of the thirty songs feature exclusively female vocalists, meaning that this collection isn’t perhaps ideal for male karaoke fans. Luke and Kevin – older than everybody else by uncomfortable margins – tried to get We Sing UK Hits going so they could warble songs from their youth, but it was not to be. Token American Stephen was happy to perform the two Lady Gaga songs though and, in all honesty, he did a pretty good job. While the rest of the team didn’t mind him wearing the wig and sunglasses for his performance, they weren’t sure that the bra or, indeed, thong were entirely necessary.

"Hey Nicole, will Nickelback ever release a decent song?"

As with the rest of the series, the game has awards to hand out for particularly good (or bad) performances. Determined to snag himself a ‘Golden Disc’ or ‘Diamond Mic’ award, Kevin tried his hand at Rolling in the Deep. Unfortunately Adele’s flat, emotionless voice lulled everybody to sleep within 30 seconds. Including Kevin.

Defying all known laws of time and space, Matt managed to make Ice Ice Baby sound like a legitimate hip hop song.

Ian (who was particularly excited at the prospect of a karaoke party) squealed with delight when he found that I’m Your Man by Wham! was on the tracklist. That just happens to be Anthony’s go-to song for karaoke, too. It was time to forget the niceties, and let battle commence. So it came to pass that these two found themselves singing against one another in Versus mode. It was close, but Ian proved to be the better singer. A sore loser, Anthony immediately replayed the video so he could shoot George Michael in the face with one of his many Nerf guns.

One of the main hooks of the We Sing series is that each game allows up to four players to sing at one another simultaneously. Of course, we had to have a Group Battle. It was Steven (AKA Grumpy Gurevitz) and Stephen (now properly dressed) against karaoke veteran Matt and karaoke addict Ian. The song? I Don’t Feel Like Dancing by Scissor Sisters. The result? Steven and Stephen flattened the opposition. Perhaps this is because, as we have long suspected, people named Steven or Stephen have a natural aptitude for high pitched singing.

Finally, there was an optimistic session on Expert, which removes the on-screen lyrics and pitch bars. Everybody took it in turns to cross singing swords on YMCA by Village People. Luke ended up with the lowest score by quite a shot; though he might have done better had he not insisted on doing little more than giggling excitedly until it was time to spell the letters out.

(Probably) not an image from that nightmare you had last week, but actually a screenshot of Hanson in We Sing Pop!

There then followed a brief calming down period where we all took advantage of the included singing lessons – though even singing ‘Do Re Me’ proved a little too taxing for some. Finally, we headed to Jukebox, which allowed us to watch the official music videos without being asked to sing along.

It was fun – karaoke parties always are (just ask Ian!) – but we still have reservations. We Sing Pop! certainly has the right idea when it comes to options. As well as simply changing the difficulty you can choose to sing the full or half length song; and diving into the pause menu allows you to get rid of the pitch bars or, helpfully, get rid of the original vocals so you can hear yourself better (if you really want to). There’s even an audio lag compensator for those with TVs which, for some reason, might need it.

However, 30 songs doesn’t seem like quite enough; even previous We Sing games feature more. In addition, there’s still no sign of a We Sing game with DLC capability – even though Nordic’s We Dance already offers this. Being able to expand the music library would have been a real shot in the arm for the experience.

Online features are in fact missing altogether. The We Sing series does what it does brilliantly, and in terms of a tracklist which will consistently appeal to the target audience (We Sing Robbie Williams excepted), this is actually the best entry so far. If only the setup were more ambitious, it would have a real chance of dragging SingStar fans away from their PS3s.

Written by Luke K

Luke plays lots of videogames, now and again stopping to write about them. He's the editor in chief at Critical Gamer, which fools him into thinking his life has some kind of value. Chances are, if you pick up a copy of the latest Official PlayStation Magazine or GamesMaster, you'll find something he's written in there.
Luke doesn't have a short temper. If you suggest otherwise, he will punch you in the face.